Year one core modules

• Analytical Techniques for Forensic Scientists
• Archaeological Heritage Management

• Principles and Methods of Archaeology and Landscape History

  This is the opening module of the archaeology degree. Students taking this module, which combines the fundamental ideas and concepts, will acquire the basics for the study of archaeology and landscape history. The module commences with an introduction to the concepts of archaeology and landscape history and recent changes, which have taken place. The student is introduced to a significant range of archaeological techniques for example, survey and site discovery, excavation techniques, dating of site and artefacts, post-excavation analysis and data analysis and the techniques needed for interpretation of archaeological sites and artefacts. In parallel the student investigates the making of the English landscape through the use of a number of techniques: walking the countryside and surveying its surface appearance, researching a breadth of rich documentary evidence for example, Domesday Book, Enclosure awards and estate surveys, tithe maps and VCH. These sources are enhanced by the study and interpretation of maps and aerial photographs together with the analysis of standing buildings and other structures, environmental evidence, geophysical survey and excavation, earthwork surveys, dating, and identifying finds and analysis, and the role of excavation in landscape studies.

• Themes in Archaeology

  The module enables the student to get to grips with the current status of archaeological theory. It summarises recent developments and looks to the future, whilst exploring some of the cutting-edge ideas at the forefront of the discipline. The module captures the diversity of contemporary archaeology, considering key issues such as the role of gender and cultural perspectives on archaeological interpretation. It discusses the relevance of culture to societal change, questioning its centrality; focusing on contingent and local factors whilst acknowledging that a long-term evolutionary view can also be taken. It explores archaeology's new openness to external influences, as well as its desire to contribute to wider debates.

• Themes in Landscape History

  The module parallels the themes in the archaeology module. It explains how to recognise and interpret the complex evidence for historical change in England's countryside. Drawing on research carried out since Reading the Landscape was originally published; it provides a summary of thinking about the history of the key elements in England's rural landscape. As well as covering familiar topics such as villages, woodlands and roads, it explores how landscape features are human ideas made manifest - boundary walls and hedges reflect territoriality, churches and henges reflect belief and castles and hillforts reflect status and the need for defence. Throughout, it explores how the link between the evidence of field archaeology, ecology, and documentary research can be developed to provide a complete picture. Particular aspects which the module covers are: The early years of landscape history and field archaeology - how the subject evolved. The making of the English landscape - an introduction to early landscapes, Roman, Medieval. The use of documentary sources. Reflections of status in the landscape. Sites and patterns and the variety of land uses and field systems. The influences of communications. All this culminates in the examination of the landscapes of today.

• Western Civilisation